Valley Congressmen Part With President on Haiti Intervention

TO WAR OR NOT TO WAR: The usual partisan fissures within the San Fernando Valley congressional delegation have evaporated over U.S. military intervention in Haiti. The five members (three Democrats and two Republicans) agree that President Clinton should not get the U.S. militarily involved in the island nation until he has first secured congressional approval.

For example, U.S. Reps. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) and Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) have co-sponsored resolutions and written letters urging Clinton to seek prior congressional authorization. And Reps. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) and Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale) share the same view.

Moreover, the Valley’s delegation is decidedly cool about the wisdom of invading Haiti at all.

“Howard opposes military intervention in Haiti,” said Jean Smith, Berman’s chief of staff. So do Beilenson, McKeon and Moorhead. Waxman’s views could not be readily ascertained Thursday because he was observing the Yom Kippur holiday.

“It would be a big mistake to go in there,” Moorhead said in an interview. “I don’t see our national interest involved. It’s impossible for us to make a democracy out of every country in the world.” Moorhead also predicted that an invasion would result in significant U.S. losses--not only from gunfire but from disease. “There’s a lot of AIDS over there,” he said.

McKeon said he is strongly opposed to sending ground troops into Haiti before other initiatives for purging its rulers have been tried.

For example, he suggested that Clinton consider Ross Perot’s plan for an aerial bombing of selective sites in Haiti. That could include the homes and headquarters of the military junta, McKeon said.

“We see film of the generals comfortably sipping their drinks in their homes,” McKeon said. “Let’s make them uncomfortable.”

Clinton should also consider offering the Haitian rulers large chunks of U.S. taxpayer dollars to leave their country and go into exile, McKeon said. “Let’s buy off the generals,” he said. “I know it sounds distasteful, but it could be a lot cheaper than spending a lot of money on an invasion and losing American lives.”

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PUTTING MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS: With polls showing heavy, across-the-board support for Proposition 187--the November ballot initiative denying selected services to illegal immigrants--its backers may have reason to be smug.

The election is seven weeks away, so it’s still early in the game. But at the very least, the people who put up money to get Proposition 187 on the ballot have proven themselves adept at putting their fingers to the wind. A Times poll this week found 62% of surveyed voters favoring the measure.

Among the initiative’s early financial backers is longtime state Sen. Don Rogers (R-Tehachapi), whose 17th Senate District stretches from Kern County into the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.

Rogers, a staunch conservative whose views tilt to the right and stay there like a political Leaning Tower of Pisa, kicked in $25,000 to help get the so-called Save Our State initiative qualified for the ballot. The measure would bar illegal immigrants from public schools, non-emergency medical care and social services.

In fact, according to the secretary of state’s office, the loan from Rogers’ campaign committee was the third-biggest contribution bankrolling the petition drive. It ranked right after the California Republican Party’s $86,678 and $27,250 from the campaign committee of Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy (R-Arcadia).

Rogers, it may be recalled, was recently in the news when the Legislature’s Latino and black caucuses criticized him for appearing before a group of suspected white supremacists in Bakersfield. The senator spoke only of states’ rights and denies sharing any racist views.

Whatever else may be said about Rogers, it’s clear he’s pretty good at summing up public sentiment in his district. His Grand Old Party is embracing SOS for the long haul, and 49% of registered voters in the sprawling 17th District are Republicans. Democrats trail with 37%.

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SCOOPING UP VOTES?: Want to see your bill become law, even after it was already snuffed out once by a stroke of the governor’s pen?

Reintroduce it and get it passed by the Legislature in an election year. That way it will land on the governor’s desk at the same time as his campaign calendar update.

Perhaps proving that timing is everything, Gov. Pete Wilson this week signed into law a bill similar to one he vetoed two years ago, allowing the state to lease two cutting-edge “super-scooper” firefighting planes.

The legislation by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) gives the go-ahead for the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to trial-lease amphibious aircraft that can scoop up 1,600 gallons of water from an ocean or reservoir to dump on fires.

Wilson’s turnabout follows a drubbing he took last year when victims of the Topanga Canyon and Malibu wildfires lit up talk-radio phone lines to question the governor’s veto.

Wilson nixed the bill in 1992 because it was too costly and he believed it could interfere with a restructuring that was under way in the Department of Forestry. But from the vantage point of angry property owners, the bill looked like just the thing that may have saved their homes.

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NO HORSING AROUND: Wilson dealt Assemblyman Richard Katz a major setback this week when he vetoed Katz’s controversial bill to set up a domestic-partners registry to benefit gays and seniors alike.

But the Sylmar Democrat chalked up a lower-profile victory when Wilson signed legislation to prevent stolen horses from ending up on someone’s dinner table.

This bill was perhaps of more personal significance to Katz, who became a horseman nine years ago as a condition of marriage to Gini Barrett, who in exchange agreed to learn the ins and outs of politics. (Barrett, a quick study, has held up her end of the bargain better, Katz says.)

The new law stems from the growing number of equine thefts in California due to increased demand for horse meat overseas. It requires law enforcement agencies to report stolen or lost horses to the Bureau of Livestock Identification, which in turn surveys slaughter herds for the animals before they can be killed.

Political cynics note that the new law could directly benefit some four-legged members of the Katz household: Cheyenne, a paint; Azteca, an appaloosa; Sundance, a palomino, and Peace, an appaloosa mix.

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NAFTA COWBOY: Katz may be enough of an equestrian to ride in cattle-penning contests down at the state fairgrounds, but he’s better known in public-policy circles for his role in transportation planning.

Thus, as chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, Katz was tapped to serve on a new panel studying international trucking resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in January.

Katz is the only California state legislator to serve as an appointee of the National Conference of State Legislatures to the subcommittee examining truck size and weight policies.

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MONEY TALES: Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and his staff argued last week that he never meant to gain financially by quietly accepting a 5% pay hike last month, noting that he only wanted the extra money so he could give it to four nonprofit programs in his district.

Yet city officials have confirmed that Yaroslavsky could have made the same gift by simply transferring $1,200 from his $642,000 office budget to the four programs. “There’s no bar at all to doing this,” said Steve Wong, a top aide in the chief legislative analyst office.

But handling the transaction this way would have meant that Yaroslavsky would not have been eligible for a pension boost, and that the lawmaker could not have claimed the possible tax advantages of donating to nonprofit groups.

To wit, Yaroslavsky had to be looking for a personal gain, said one city official. The only other explanation was that the chairman of the council’s Budget Committee and a two-decade veteran of City Hall didn’t know how to finesse his own office budget. Hmmm. . . .

Some within the City Council family have also privately pointed out another tried-and-true method council members have used to fund nonprofit groups: giving them money from campaign contribution accounts.

As of June 30, Yaroslavsky had $177,994.61 in his account.